Modern Chinese Legal Reform: New Perspectives

Modern Chinese Legal Reform: New Perspectives

Synopsis

As China becomes more powerful on the world stage, international policymakers insist that long-term legal reforms and the development of civil liberties are crucial for the nation's acceptance as a global partner. In Modem Chinese Legal Reform, editors Xiaobing Li and Qiang Fang bring together scholars from multiple disciplines to provide a comprehensive look at China's rapid socioeconomic transformation and the dramatic changes in its judicial system and legal practices. Investigating subjects such as constitutional history, the intersection of politics and law, democratization, civil legal practices, and judicial mechanisms, this volume situates current constitutional debates in the context of both the country's ideology and traditions and the wider global community. Based on newly available official sources and interviews with Chinese administrators, judges, law enforcement officers, and legal experts, this essential resource enables readers to view key events through the eyes of individuals who are intimately acquainted with the challenges and successes of the past twenty years.

Excerpt

Xiaobing Li and Qiang Fang

Few areas of research in China studies pose more difficulties than that of the Chinese legal system, primarily because of its unique position in Chinese society and relationship to the legitimacy of the nation’s Communist authority. the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is still the state’s dominant political party and controls the executive, legislative, and judicial systems. Since 1978 the CCP’s leaders have launched the reform movement, and China has experienced a tremendous wave of change. the shifting nature of the ongoing reform, however, is plagued by contradiction, uncertainty, and the clash of tradition and modernity.

The reform movement has produced three major problems confronting students of Chinese legal practice: continuing Party influence, frequent changes of laws, and a gap between the government’s promise and the courtroom reality. That gap between the promise of legal reform and the reality of legal practice makes understanding Chinese law and order very difficult for Westerners. This book examines the country’s legal system and major judicial problems; it also introduces and explores the history and practice of constitutional rights by identifying key issues in Chinese ideology, government, and society. Using an analytical approach through new perspectives, this volume identifies some of the contradictions and even confrontations in Chinese policy making, explains the dilemma Beijing faces, and provides a better understanding of China’s economic change, political concerns, social transitions, and legal reforms.

Reform is never an easy task, especially in Chinese history. Many great . . .